The seriously-injured lad at Bath
There was a glimmer of good news this week from Bath City. You may have heard of Bath City’s Alex Fletcher, who crashed into an advertising hoarding against Dulwich Hamlet and ended up in intensive care with brain injuries. The lad is now out of intensive care, although it’s a long path to recovery. The non-League community has been outstanding in supporting Alex, with support coming from many clubs around the country. From Fat Rophy, good luck to Alex.
Linnets hit the end of the line(t)
Runcorn Linnets, appearing in the 2nd Round of the FA Trophy for the first time, made the long haul to Spennymoor Town but, after a dogged performance, lost 3-2. After going a goal down in the opening minutes, Ryan Brooke equalised for the Linnets. By half-time, the Moors had opened up a 3-1 lead. A goal by Jamie Rainford 20 seconds into the second half gave Runcorn Linnets hope, but the score remained at 3-2 as Spennymoor progressed to the 3rd Round.
A rare quiz
It’s not often we have quiz questions in the FA Trophy review, but
what connects these six teams that entered either this season’s FA Trophy or FA Vase? Folkestone Invicta, Brentwood Town, Three Bridges, Sevenoaks Town, Leighton Town, Cheltenham Saracens. And, what’s missing? I’m counting on someone to solve this before next week.
‘Arrow, ‘arrow ‘arrow, what’s going on ‘ere then?
Harrow Borough, the second of the teams that Fat Rophy is following, went to Canvey Island and came away with a 4-2 win at mightyish Concord Rangers, the 2020 FA Trophy finalists. Two goals from George Moore sealed the victory by making it 4-2 after Harrow had roared into a 3-0 lead.
Message in a bottle
Warrington Town keeper, Tony Thompson, has gained unwanted fame overnight. He’s not the first goalkeeper to be sent off, but he was
shown a red card for reacting badly to a Guiseley fan in their FA Trophy tie. Terrible, you might think, until you learn that the fan allegedly replaced his bottle of water with a bottle of urine. Tony reacted badly, squirting the liquid at the perpetrator, and was duly sent off. What’s your view on this one? And, by the way, all the puns like ‘taking the piss’ have already been overused in non-League football circles. To make matters worse, Guiseley won 1-0 with a deflected goal in the dying minutes. Message in a bottle? I assume the police will be involved.
Charge ‘em more
Several non-League clubs are trying to cash in (or not cash in) on the World Cup by offering free or discounted entry to their games for season ticket holders of Premier League or Championship clubs. Surely, they should be charging double their usual entry fee to non-regulars and cashing in on those Manchester United fans with nowhere to go on a Saturday afternoon.
Emirp of Qatar
Last week, we proudly announced that the 73rd issue of the FA Trophy Review will be a bumper issue. It seemed to quell the loyal bunch of supporters that was expecting a bumper 50th edition. Reversible prime numbers like 73 are known as emirp (it’s true, but geddit?). I wonder if this came from the emir of Qatar? Apparently, they are also referred to as colourful numbers. I don’t know why, but I assume they are not the colours of the rainbow.
Office sweepstake
I heard of someone running an office sweepstake where you draw a ticket for the potential World Cup winners. I gather there was a riot when the organiser somehow got France and Brazil. As for the organiser’s most hated colleague getting Italy in the sweepstake. No further comment.
16,511
A new record National League crowd attended last weekend’s game between Notts County and Yeovil Town. The score was 0-0 with the visitors bringing 452 to the party. The only games to exceed this attendance in League One or Two on the same day were Sheffield Wednesday v Shrewsbury Town and Bradford City v Northampton Town. Indeed, most attendances were less than half the Notts County turnout. County are currently second in the National League behind my old friends at Wrexham.
Teleprinters and changed scores
I remember as a kid that the teleprinter on Grandstand often gave
wrong final scores. A correction would appear with the actual score a minute or two later. So many times as a youngster, I remember hoping that the Charlton score would be an error and that a corrected resulted would appear minutes later. The one time there was a corrected score for Charlton, a defeat went 3-1 to 4-1. This weekend, as a former follower of Bromley, I saw that Dorking Wanderers recovered from 3-2 down to 4-3 up against ten-man Bromley. Bromley then equalised at 90+9 to make it 4-4. I slept on Saturday evening thinking three points lost but a point gained. Only today, I find that the injury time glut of goals was nonsense; Bromley won 3-2. Who’s to blame for spoiling my Saturday evening?
